Malcolm Holcombe – Sittin’ Sad – Backstage: Tennessee Shines<\/a><\/p>\nTake it easy, but take it!<\/p>\n
Aaron Franz<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And I’m not watching, I’m in my mail program as the clip is unspooling in the background.\u00c2\u00a0 But this dude is rambling to the point of incomprehensibility and Aaron said this wasn’t the best clip so I click through to Safari to turn it off and…THE GUY STARTS TO WAIL!<\/p>\n
You know it when you see it.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s something you feel.\u00c2\u00a0 Deep down inside.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like there’s a tiny flame and suddenly a breeze comes in and turns it into a fire and ultimately a conflagration.<\/p>\n
And it happens most when you least expect it.\u00c2\u00a0 And you hope and pray you’re not let down, that the performer can sustain your interest, that there’s not a lame chorus, that he doesn’t disappoint you.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’re hanging in there, like walking on ice from your front door to your automobile, hoping to make it without falling.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you slip you’ll just have another disappointment in this endless series of moments we call life.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the performer has probably lost your interest forever and will fade away and not radiate.<\/p>\n
But when it’s right…<\/p>\n
Music is something you hear.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not something you see.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you hear it, it makes you feel human.<\/p>\n
This is completely different from what they’re selling on Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not humanity.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s artifice.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a market for that.\u00c2\u00a0 But less of one than ever in these troubled times.\u00c2\u00a0 For all the lemmings following the antics of these twits desirous of getting rich there’s a plethora of people who’ve rejected music, because it just doesn’t touch them.<\/p>\n
But if you’re not touched by Malcolm Holcombe, you’re not alive.\u00c2\u00a0 And it isn’t about blowing him up, parading him in "Parade", it’s the cumulative effect of multiple Holcombes that creates a scene that makes people pay attention to music, become enraptured, talk about it, devour tracks like they’re food.<\/p>\n
How does this barely coherent guy manage to knock it out of the park?<\/p>\n
But isn’t that the way it is.\u00c2\u00a0 The best artists are troubled.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t show up on time.\u00c2\u00a0 All they can do is this.\u00c2\u00a0 Lay down their story in song.<\/p>\n
Corporations hate these people.\u00c2\u00a0 They want performers who will show up in the early a.m. for "Today", who won’t cuss and get drunk at inopportune moments.<\/p>\n
Cursory research tells me Malcolm Holcombe once had a deal with Geffen Records. That’s not important to me.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about history, it’s about performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching this clip makes me want to see him live.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, I might like a record.\u00c2\u00a0 But the sound he gets in this room, that’s the one I want.\u00c2\u00a0 The undiluted, unfiltered honesty.<\/p>\n
I can’t do what Malcolm Holcombe does.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s one of the things that draws me to him.<\/p>\n
Just listen.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what we’re looking for. This is our roots.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the underpinning. And without a basis, without music that can be summed up on one guitar in an empty room, we’ve got nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing this makes you a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only of Holcombe, but music.<\/p>\n
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Whoa! I’m sitting here trying to catch up on e-mail before I hit the rain-soaked freeway and the tonality of the following e-mail, the humble quality, the fact that this guy said he was just about to give up in light of the brilliance of the linked performer made me click through. Bob, Not sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Vh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3552,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3551\/revisions\/3552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}